Stranger # 94 Jillian Elizabeth

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Jillian Elizabeth or Jill for the shorter version. I met Jill several days ago when picking my van up from a local dealership where it was being repaired. It was her eyes which first caught my attention, while she was taking my money and they made me think she would be an excellent subject for my portraits of strangers project. There was one major problem, I did not have my camera with me. I mentioned my project to her and we agreed on a time and location...more »

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Jillian Elizabeth or Jill for the shorter version. I met Jill several days ago when picking my van up from a local dealership where it was being repaired. It was her eyes which first caught my attention, while she was taking my money and they made me think she would be an excellent subject for my portraits of strangers project. There was one major problem, I did not have my camera with me. I mentioned my project to her and we agreed on a time and location to take her portrait. Jill is a singer and song writer, operates as Jillian Elizabeth Music and we agreed I would take some pictures while she was performing. I attended her performance tonight, which I very much enjoyed and this was one of my favourite pictures. Thank you Jill for agreeing to help me with my photography project and I wish you success with your music career. You can learn more about Jill and follow her career on her Jillian Elizabeth Music Facebook page.

Observations: The main technical challenge in taking Jill’s picture was the lighting. I did not want to use flash as it would likely change the natural stage lighting and might disrupt the performance so I chose to crank the ISO up to 12,800 on my Nikon D800. Even at that high ISO and my Nikon 105mm lens wide open at 2.8 a shutter speed of 1/20th of a second was required to get enough light. It is a challenge to hand hold and get a clear picture at that shutter speed but I was reasonably pleased with this one. I liked that I was able to capture a little sparkle in her eye.

This picture is the 94th portrait in my efforts to complete the required 100 portraits for the portraits of strangers project to help improve my photography skills. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers on the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page http://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/ and on the 100 strangers web site http://www.100strangers.com/ . Please also visit Bill's Photography on Face« less